{"id":831314,"date":"2026-07-28T11:59:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T11:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/831314\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T11:59:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T11:59:27","slug":"a-year-after-the-clase-gambling-scandal-some-players-still-question-mlbs-safeguards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/831314\/","title":{"rendered":"A year after the Clase gambling scandal, some players still question MLB\u2019s safeguards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last July, for 25 days, Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase walked around the halls of Progressive Field, reclined his seat on team flights and sat beside fellow relievers in the bullpen. Business as usual.<\/p>\n

By this time, the league office had already placed Guardians pitcher Luis Ortiz on paid leave. Clase allegedly roped him into a pitch-rigging scheme that now has both pitchers set to stand trial in November<\/a> on wire fraud and conspiracy charges.<\/p>\n

Yet from July 3, 2025, until Clase, too, was placed on leave on July 28, the perennial All-Star acted as if nothing was brewing. \u201cHe just kept pitching,\u201d one ex-teammate said.<\/p>\n

One year later, mention Clase\u2019s name near a Guardians executive and their face will turn a shade of ill green or irate red, as they think about the decisions made and the disrespect shown to teammates and the organization \u2014 especially during those 25 days when MLB had Clase in its crosshairs.<\/p>\n

The saga has unfolded in court documents \u2014 many sealed, some revealed \u2014 filed to a judge in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y. Clase\u2019s camp has blamed the whole ordeal on a misinterpretation of texts and calls pertaining to rooster fighting. The pitchers have tried to distance themselves from each other. The trial has been delayed six months. Federal prosecutors have sifted through tens of thousands of messages and documents. Cleveland fans continue to analyze every slider Clase ever spiked.<\/p>\n

Guardians players struggle to understand how Clase, a bit of a recluse, kept it cool. Players from other teams closely tracked each development in the case, too. They wondered how this could transpire, and tried to play detective. Did Clase and Ortiz throw them any rigged pitches?<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely remember going down the rabbit hole,\u201d one player said.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say Clase\u2019s illicit activity began in May 2023, but it didn\u2019t come to light for more than two years. Has MLB done enough to prevent this sort of scenario from repeating itself?<\/p>\n

In our annual anonymous player poll<\/a>, in which The Athletic surveyed 100 players across 23 teams about a variety of MLB-related topics this spring, we asked exactly that:<\/p>\n

More than half of the players who participated in the poll believe that the league has devoted sufficient attention and resources to help prevent players from partnering with gamblers. More than a quarter of the participants either didn\u2019t have a strong opinion or didn\u2019t feel they had enough knowledge on the subject to provide a proper answer. The remaining 18 players were dissatisfied with the safeguards the league has instituted to prevent a situation akin to the Clase-Ortiz scandal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first rule: Rule 21,\u201d said one multi-time All-Star who believes the league has done its due diligence. \u201cNo betting on baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know the rules,\u201d said an AL catcher. \u201cBut you have to police yourself, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardians contended last year there wasn\u2019t anything more they could do from an educational standpoint to prevent such a fiasco. MLB officials deliver a PowerPoint presentation on the topic to each team during spring training. The rules are posted in every clubhouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey come in here,\u201d said an NL Central hitter, \u201cand are like, \u2018It\u2019s black and white: You bet on baseball, you\u2019re done.\u2019 Pretty simple rule to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows it\u2019s a lifetime ban,\u201d said a veteran NL starter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like PEDs,\u201d said an AL Central position player. \u201cIt\u2019s well-known that you shouldn\u2019t be doing that, so if you do it, I feel like that\u2019s your decision rather than a lack of understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t control what people do if they want to make bad decisions,\u201d said an NL hitter. \u201cPeople will make bad decisions. But I think everybody knows the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many players relayed similar thoughts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, you can lead a horse to water,\u201d an unsure AL Central pitcher said. \u201cBut are they going to drink?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes plain stupidity to do that,\u201d said an NL reliever. \u201cYou can\u2019t fix stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or, in similar terms: \u201cIf you\u2019re a turd of a person,\u201d an AL pitcher said, \u201cyou\u2019re always going to be a turd of a person. If you\u2019re going to put yourself in that situation, you know exactly what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can do all the precautions, you can put all the signs up,\u201d said a then-AL pitcher, \u201cbut if people want to break the law, they\u2019ll break the law. That\u2019s the world. Everyone tells you you can\u2019t steal, you can\u2019t kill people, and people still do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople love to push their luck,\u201d said an NL right-hander. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s called gambling and some guys gamble their careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Clase-Ortiz situation, however, could be just as useful a teaching tool as any, some players theorized.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the players will be a lot smarter after everything that\u2019s just gone on,\u201d said an AL East outfielder.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you haven\u2019t gotten caught, it\u2019s not about if, but when,\u201d said an AL Central pitcher.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole deal in Cleveland seems like a pretty good start,\u201d said an NL pitcher. \u201cThey got rid of one of the better players in baseball, which tells you, \u2018We don\u2019t allow this for anybody.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn’t so cut and dried for every player, though. Some players cited the league\u2019s partnerships with sports betting companies as hypocritical or even laying the foundation for this sort of scandal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough, because it\u2019s such a prominent thing in society now,\u201d said an AL hitter. \u2026 \u201cAt this point, it\u2019s such a huge moneymaker and money-driving business, it\u2019s kind of the root of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in every stadium,\u201d said an AL pitcher. \u201cThere\u2019s f—ing ads everywhere \u2014 BetMGM, Bet Hard Rock, all this s—. There\u2019s nothing saying, \u2018Don\u2019t do it.\u2019 It would be too easy. We already saw it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a pretty hypocritical thing to take the stance they do on gambling and put such a negative stigma around players gambling,\u201d said an NL hitter, \u201cwhile also promoting DraftKings and FanDuel Sportsbook and those things. It doesn\u2019t make a whole lot of sense to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

That line of thinking compelled certain players to answer \u201cno,\u201d that the league isn\u2019t doing enough to prevent a situation like the one that has unfolded with Clase.<\/p>\n

\u201cMLB is going the opposite way,\u201d said an AL pitcher, \u201cand promoting it rather than helping players.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last July, for 25 days, Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase walked around the halls of Progressive Field, reclined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,491,462,82,575],"class_list":["post-831314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}